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The Delta Nudes
The Delta Nudes '''(also known as '''Ivory and the Brain Eaters, The College Walkers, The Singing Lawnchairs, Residents, Uninc., Univac Res Corp, The Pre-sidents) were a loose assembly of friends, musicians and artists who existed in San Mateo, California between c. 1965 and 1972. With the release of their Santa Dog EP in 1972, they became solely known as The Residents. While the group existed for a number of years, recorded possibly hundreds of reels of tape, and performed at various open-mic nights and private parties in the San Francisco area, The Residents do not consider their work to be part of their official discography, and since 2013, have retrospectively referred to this group under the name The Delta Nudes when re-issuing material from this era. History Origins The Delta Nudes originated in Shreveport, Louisiana, where Randy Rose and Charles "Chuck" Bobuck first met in high school in the early 1960s and, discovering mutual interests, became close friends and collaborators in their early attempts at art and music making. In 1966 the members of the group headed west for San Francisco, but after their truck broke down in San Mateo, California, they decided to remain there, where they attended college and befriended Roland Sheehan, who had access to a large number of musical instruments, as well as Margaret Smyk and the later members of The Cryptic Corporation, Homer Flynn, Hardy Fox, Jay Clem and John Kennedy. While attempting to make a living, they began to experiment with tape machines, photography, and anything remotely to do with art that they could get their hands on. The group purchased crude recording equipment and instruments and began to make tapes, refusing to let an almost complete lack of musical proficiency stand in the way. From 1965 to 1967, the group began to make the first of possibly hundreds of loosely edited tapes, consisting mostly of home studio experiments, rehearsals and improvisational jams. The majority of these early tapes were supposedly destroyed by The Residents, who considered them to be well below their later standard and feared that they would inevitably leak to the public one day. The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger and Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor (1969-1970) Word of their experimentation spread and in 1969, the group's friend Margaret Smyk introduced them to a visiting British guitarist and multi-instrumentalist named Philip Lithman, who began recording with the group despite their relative lack of musical experience. Sheehan left the group and San Mateo in 1969, however by this point they had gathered enough recorded material to begin compiling tapes without the assistance of the more musically proficient Sheehan. Two of these unreleased reel-to-reel items, titled The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger and Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor, would be rumored for years but completely unheard to fans until the mid-2010s when they surfaced in a low quality bootleg format. Uncle Willie, former UWEB fan club president, wrote in his book Uncle Willie's Highly Opinionated Guide to the Residents that, while searching through the band's archives, he came across "a suite named 'The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger'", but not a complete album. The actual titles of these two reels (if they even have titles, or can be considered "albums" proper) are in question, but each features a track and a reprise matching the reel's assumed title. The majority of The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger and Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor ''have never been officially released by the band in any form, except for short excerpts of the title tracks on later compilations and in the documentary ''Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents. Around this time, the group also met the mysterious N. Senada (whom Lithman had picked up in Bavaria, where he found the elderly avant-garde composer recording birds), who paid them a visit and decided to remain. Lithman and Senada would become heavily influential in the group's work from this point onwards throughout its existence as The Residents. The Warner Bros. Album ''and formation of Residents Uninc. (1970-1971) In 1971, the still-unnamed group sent a reel-to-reel tape to Hal Halverstadt at Warner Brothers, since he had worked with Captain Beefheart (one of the group's musical heroes). Halverstadt was not overly impressed with ''The Warner Bros. Album (describing it as "okay at best" in Uncle Willie's Cryptic Guide to the Residents), but awarded the tape an "A for Ariginality". Because the band had not included any name in the return address, the rejection slip was simply addressed to "The Residents". The members of the group then decided that this would be the name they would use, first becoming Residents Uninc. - the management arm of the anonymous group. By this time the group had also formed Porno Graphics, their graphic design arm, led primarily by Flynn throughout the rest of their existence. Early performances and Baby Sex (1971-1972) The group's first known performance was at The Boarding House in San Francisco in 1971 (though it is rumored that N. Senada performed spoken word and saxophone improvisations at open-mic nights around this time). That same year another demo tape was completed, entitled Baby Sex - ''named after its disturbing original cover art; a silk-screened copy of an old advertisement from a Dutch pornographic magazine, depicting a woman fellating a small child. The birth of Ralph Records and The Residents (1972-1974) In late 1971, the band relocated to 20 Sycamore Street, San Francisco; a studio they named "El Ralpho", which boasted a completely open ground floor (seemingly ideal for a sound stage), allowing the group to expand their operations and also begin preliminary work on their most ambitious project up to that point, a full-length film entitled ''Vileness Fats, which would consume most of their attention for the next four years. In 1972, the group formed Ralph Records as a small, independent label to release and promote their own work. To inaugurate the new business, the group recorded and pressed the Santa Dog EP, which then their first recorded output to be released to the public. Designed to resemble a Christmas card from an insurance company, the EP consisted of two 7" singles, with four songs between them. Following the formation of their record label, the band formally adopted The Residents as their moniker and released their debut album Meet The Residents ''in 1974. Members and collaborators * R. Rose * C. Bobuck * B. Tangney * J. Whitiker * P. Lithman * Zeibak * R. Sheehan * G. Ewart * J. Clem * H. Flynn * H. Fox * J. Kennedy * P. Eiland * D. Paulsen * P. Honeydew * G. Whifler Discography * ''The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger (c. 1969-1970) * Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor (c. 1970-1971) * The Warner Bros. Album (1971, officially released 2018) * Baby Sex (1971) * Santa Dog EP (1972) * ERA B474 compilation (2012) * ''Greatest Hiss'' compilation (2013) * The Residents Present The Delta Nudes compilation (2016) Known live performances * The Boarding House - October 18th 1971, San Francisco, California * Party of '71 - October 31st 1971, Arcata, California * Party of '72 - unknown date, 1972, Redwood, California